Which is why we've lined up Peak Prosperity resident crypto expert Mark Rees to offer answers across the spectrum about Bitcoin, the other digital currencies, and the blockchain. He and Chris will roll up their sleeves to dive deep into a highly-interactive discussion of all things crypto in our upcoming webinar on Sunday January 7, 2018 at noon EST/9am PST.

The full event will last about an hour and half, and draw heavily from audience Q&A. So bring your most pressing questions -- you'll be able to ask them directly to Mark and Chris.

This week we talk with Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, and rare courageous voice within corporate America raising concern that powerful interests on Wall Street are destroying US companies for profit, robbing investors and destabilizing our financial system in the process.

Byrne has been an early advocate for digital currencies and their potential to protect financial wealth from the massive policy missteps being undertaken by the Federal Reserve. (In 2014, Overstock.com became the first major retailer to accept Bitcoin payments.)

In this week's podcast, Byrne details out the promising potential of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain, as well as his thoughts as to whether they will be able or not to evade subversion by the world central authorities. » Read more

In Part 1, we surveyed the exciting but confusing speculative boom phase of cryptocurrencies. Here in Part 2, we will contextualize this mad swirl by running it through two filters: scarcity and utility.

What’s Scarce? Scarcity Creates Value

Regardless of one’s economic ideology or system, scarcity creates value and abundance destroys value. When we say supply and demand, we’re really talking about scarcity and abundance and the rise or fall of demand for the commodity, good or service.

But this model has weaknesses. There aren’t always substitutes, or the substitutes are more expensive or problematic than what is now scarce.

As a general rule, profits flow to any scarcity of goods and services with high utility value. We value what’s scarce and useful, and place little value on what’s abundant and of limited utility.

Currency has three basic functions: a store of value (it will retain its purchasing power over time), means of exchange (we can use it to trade goods and services, pay debts, etc.) and as an accounting mechanism to track assets, debts, income, expenses and exchanges/trades.

We assume all currency has this function, but only currency that is easily divisible and easily tradable enables easy accounting. If a notched stick is a unit of currency, and one stick buys a pig, what do I use for purchases smaller than a pig?

Today, there are hundreds of cryptocurrencies, and a speculative boom has pushed bitcoin from around $600 a year ago to $2600 and Ethereum, another leading cryptocurrency, from around $10 last year to $370.

Where are cryptocurrencies in the evolution from new technology to speculative boom to maturation? Judging by valuation leaps from $10 to $370, the technology is clearly in the speculative boom phase.

In trying to predict which forms of cryptocurrencies will dominate the mature marketplace of the future, we know that markets will sort the wheat from the chaff by a winnowing the entries down to those that solve real business problems (i.e. address scarcities) in ways that are cheap and robust and that cannot be solved by other technologies.